The present invention relates to a novel soft contact lens device used for insertion and removal of the lens.
Contact lenses can be made to correct most visual conditions correctable by regular eyeglasses. Moreover, contact lenses are not readily visible and provide the user with a wider field of vision than do eyeglasses.
The first contact lenses were of the "hard" variety, that is to say, they are lathe cut and polished or are molded of a relatively rigid material, usually methylmethacrylate, and formed by heat and pressure to the exact shape of the wearer's eye. The user must learn to wear them over a period of time. Many persons have experienced difficulty in wearing hard contact lenses.
A recent innovation has beeen the "soft" contact lens constructed of flexible and liquid absorbent material such as 2-hydroxethyl methacrylate. Although very comfortable to wear, the soft contact lens has some problems, including the difficulty of removal.
Generally, soft contact lenses are removed by the wearer moving the contact lens off the cornea onto the sclera and pinching the soft contact between his fingertips, thereby removing the contact lens from the eye. Unfortunately, some people have difficulty in removing the contact lens because of their difficulty in placing their fingers on the cornea, while others have long or sharp fingernails and still others are generally clumsy having large fingers.
As discussed above, hard contact lenses are easily removed by a scissoring action of the eyelids or by suction cup type of removal devices. Such a scissoring action is inappropriate for soft contact lenses, and a suction device does not effectively work because of the relative potential damage which can be done to the surface of the eye in attempting to break the greater capillary attraction which keeps the soft contact lens on the eye.